The Wolf Queen’s Stillings

The Wolf Queen’s Stillings are groups of long barrows built around the hill of Sarren Kir in Cairn Dor. They hold magically sleeping captives known as dreamers, whose enforced sleep sustains Yeshara and the sleepless soldiers of the Shemra Azem.

Purpose

Within Cairn Dor, among the Yo’nari, the Stillings are thought to be quarantine sites where dangerous sleep is confined. Though the Nurim-Dor sleep on occasion, it is fitful and rarely, or never, leads to dreams. Those who dream are thought to be cursed and corrupted; worse, the people of Cairn Dor believe this curse can spread. Thus, the Stillings are needed to isolate those who are a danger; guarded by the sleepless Shemra Azem.

These beliefs conceal the Stillings’ true purpose: dreamers, captives taken from the Material Plane, sleep in the Stillings and it is their sleep that allows Shemra Azem to never sleep and to revive after apparently fatal wounds. When the dreamers are awakened, the warriors sustained by them collapse.

Successive cycles of raids and wars produced successive groups of Stillings. Three old, unguarded barrows found in DR 1748 contained dead dwarven dreamers taken during the War of the Dark Rift, along with a portal leading to the ruins of Enderra. More recent, heavily guarded barrows held lizardfolk taken during the Lizardfolk Village Disappearances. Together, these sites preserve physical evidence that the Umbral Covenant of the Dark Rift and the modern forces of Cairn Dor were parts of the same recurrent threat.

The barrows all bear the warning, repeated in many languages: “Let no dawn enter. Let no roof break. Let the sleepers lie still and keep the Queen awake.”